


Curiosity killed the cat (but satisfaction brought it back)

by loisselina (LoisSelina)



Series: Iron is thicker than water [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Harley Keener, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Harley Keener & Peter Parker Friendship, Iron Family, Pepperony - Freeform, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Lives, dad tony, iron sons, like i have a lit degree but thats mostly thanks to wiki, peter parker and harley keener are basically tony starks sons, silvia plath wishes she had my run on sentences, sylvia plath i just cant spell, this author has not met a comma she did not use, younger brother peter parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26841757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoisSelina/pseuds/loisselina
Summary: Tony is finally back in the states, and finally tells Harley and Peter that he's alive... will they be happy?
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Iron is thicker than water [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952464
Comments: 3
Kudos: 80





	Curiosity killed the cat (but satisfaction brought it back)

No one ever talked about how tiring it was dying and coming back to life, Tony thought as he sat in the plane seat, okay T'Challa had talked about it with him blessing it as a miracle, but Tony was still going to complain about it. 

He wasn’t a king, he didn’t have to hold in his complaints:   
about the cradle sessions (on account of them hurting like a bitch, so much that he began to think that maybe he should have teased Clint so much),   
about not being allowed into Shuri’s lab (on account of the vertigo when he sat upright),   
about not being allowed on his phone (on account of Pepper not wanting him to have a heart attack from the stress of seeing the world),   
About not even being able to see Morgan until he was able to stay awake for longer than an hour (a whole three weeks since his resurrection, mostly as his dropping off in the middle of conversations was unsettling due to his habit of sometimes sleeping with his eyes open… okay he understood that one a little)   
….but most of all he complained about not being able to even talk to Harley and Peter, as he had done with Morgan, on account of them not knowing he was alive. 

He had died. Now Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey, Steve, Happy, Bruce, T’Challa, Helen Cho, and the entire nation of Wakanda knew that he was alive and well (and he was _well_ , it just took him three months to become well again), and two out of his three kids didn’t even know... hell, he wasn’t even sure if they realised that he counted them as his kids, biology be damned; before Morgan he hadn’t been the best at verbalising his feelings, hell before Peter… no, before _Harley_ , he had straight up sucked at verbalising to anyone other than during breakdowns. 

“You should try and get some sleep.” 

Tony turned his head to see Pepper, her face wiped free of makeup, her strawberry blonde hair coming out of its bun, she ever so subtly wiped her mouth where she had clearly been drooling in her sleep. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, just couldn’t sleep. Happy’s phone keeps going off, I think he joined tinder, or something...” 

“I know you, remember? I know something’s wrong when you don’t at least smirk at me drooling in my sleep, and I know that you know both of the text message alerts Happy has for the boys’.”

Tony sighed. “I just… Maybe we should have flown them out to Wakanda at the same time we flew Morgan…” 

“You talked to May and Happy and Rhodey and Steve,” she watched him frown ever so slightly, “Morgan was easily distracted by everything, and would take naps when you did, she didn’t understand it, she was less worried. Those boys are older and geniuses, and they’re as stubborn as you, they would have known straight away what was going on, how serious it was even once you lived, how painful it was, how tiring, they wouldn’t have left your side, they would have worried themselves sick…. and we didn’t know how long it would take. You did the right thing for the kids, Tony, the responsible thing.” 

“...Yeah, but they would have shouted at the psycho- sorry _physio_ when she made me do more reps… okay maybe not Harley, he would have found some popcorn… and Peter wouldn’t have shouted but he would have done that whole puppy dog thing and they would have done anything he asked, like letting me out of crunches.” 

Pepper smiled softly at her husband, even being able to listen to him complain after all those weeks in the deep coma had been a relief. But she also knew what was really wrong, that he was trying to sound jokey about it really he was afraid that after the initial surprise reunion Harley and Peter would want nothing to do with him. She couldn’t promise him that they’d be alright with it, that they’d be alright at all, she could just hold his hand, so that’s what she did.

  
  
  


* * *

Tony had used Rhodey to get the boys to the recently bought back Avengers/Stark Industries Tower, telling them that Pep was back in the company after dealing with some business, and to get their asses to the tower after Peter finished school, okay maybe Rhodey had phrased it nicer than Tony had told him to, but it had still got them back here.

Happy had picked them up (Harley was staying in an apartment not too far from Peter while he waited for MIT to start up again), Friday notified him when they entered the building, and again when they were on the way up to the Stark suite. 

Tony paced as he waited in the den off the side, it was cozier, more enclosed than the rest of the living areas, something he had only ever seen in movies until he and Pepper had bought the cabin by the lake- he had thought about getting them to go there, the weekend with them all there, longer if he could talk Peter’s aunt into letting him ditch…. But Steve had pointed out that it might not be best to do this where his funeral was held, and Rhodey pointed out that the boys might not want to stay, that they might be pissed at him, that they might run, at least in New York they would only be able to run home. 

“-you couldn’t do it.”

Tony didn’t think he had ever felt his heart beat so far, or his hands sweat so much, maybe all of this had been a bad idea, maybe he _should_ have flown them out regardless of the stress to him and them, or he could have come back sooner, or done this over the phone where he didn’t have to see the looks on their faces…

“I _could_!... Okay, I could if you helped me.” 

“You couldn’t hack Friday to let you take two Iron Man suits.”

Tony bit his lip to stop himself from laughing, _of_ _course_ that’s what they were talking about, of course Peter was trying to stop Harley. 

“I only need _one_.”

“I’m not sharing one with you.”

Oh dear god, Harley Keener really had corrupted Peter Parker, god even New York hadn’t managed to corrupt Peter, but a few months of knowing Harley had made him brazen enough to discuss stealing from Tony, the guy who Tony could count on one hand the times he hadn’t called him ‘Mr Stark’. 

“You have the Spi-” Harley’s voice dropped to a loud whisper out of habit, but Tony could still hear them through the door, “the spidey suit!”

“My arms get tired sometimes, or my whole body, or I have to go to the _suburbs_.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore, Tony clicked his finger and Friday opened the door, the boys’ heist plans were silence, they both froze and shut up, something Tony had never seen either of them do. 

“You could just ask Happy to pick you up, Pete. Or me… I have some free time lately, I’m planning on milking the resurrection thing for as long as possible;” he heard himself rambling, he saw the colour drop from the kids’ faces, “not going to board meetings until Pep physically drags me to them, do some inventing, perfecting my Mario Kart game to finally beat Bird Box, tea parties with Morgan… stopping you two from trying to steal my suits…” 

He suddenly let out a ‘humpf’ noise as Harley ran at him, fast enough to nearly knock him off his feet, wrapping him in a hug. 

Tony hugged back just as tightly.   
“Hey motormouth, you been keeping Rhodey busy while I’ve been gone?” His little way of saying that he knew, that it had been his way of keeping watch over them from, well beyond the grave quite literally. 

He heard a laugh and felt Harley nod against his shoulder. Tony held him tighter, he had grown so much since he had first met him, hell, he’d matured even since he had last spoken to him at the end of the world, if Rhodey and Steve were to be believed. 

Speaking of the end of the world… 

He looked over Harley’s shoulder and sure enough Peter Parker was still standing where he had been before, pale as a ghost, tears in his eyes, fear on his face. 

Shit. Shit, shit shit, this wasn’t good. 

“Pete? Underoos…?”

Harley letting go of him, (well not quite, his hands had moved from the back of Tony’s t-shirt to the front, not about to let go of him), was not something he had expected, but the older kid turned to look back at Peter. 

“It’s him, Peter, _seriously_ , it’s him, he’s here, it’s not a dream _I_ _swear_.”

When that didn’t work Tony gently squeezed Harley’s arm to assure him he was there but Harley needed to let go for a minute, he did without complaint, apparently also worried about Peter. 

Tony walked over to Peter slowly, as he would a wounded creature, taking him in as he did: he looked as young as when he had first seen him, it had been nearly seven years, but only nearly two for Peter, his eyes were the only place which usually carried that weight, on the bad days, as Peter had once referred to them as, but now they were shining with tears and even they looked young and unguarded. 

He was skinny, skinnier than he had known, he was going to have to go through Karen line by line of code and see if Peter had, (probably with the help of Harley), decided to freestyle and delete the code Tony used to check up on him.   
He was dressed in worn clothes, despite having ‘inherited’ money from Tony (he figured his dying would finally force Peter to accept his money, according to Pepper he used it to top up his metrocard and his school food card, to buy a gift which Happy had delivered personally to Morgan, and a birthday present for Harley, instead of anything fun for himself).

“T-Tony?” 

His voice sounded broken, like he couldn’t believe it, like Tony had in nightmares after Peter had been snapped. Tony’s voice was as soft as it could be in response. “Yeah. Yeah kiddo, it’s me, I’m sorry, I can explain, to both of you,” he looked back at Harley for a second before allowing his eyes to return to Peter, “I promise. But first, can I…?” He slowly held his arms out in the universal gesture for a hug, Peter didn’t hesitate any longer, he threw himself into Tony’s arms, clinging tight onto him, Tony didn’t even care about the super strength, he hugged him back.

“We won but you… you… I should have, I should have-”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Tony’s hand went to the back of Peter’s head, stroking through his hair, his tone was the same as when Morgan had nightmares. All of his kids were plagued with them. He felt Peter’s head shake ‘no’ against his shoulder. 

“I shoulda- I shoulda done it, I should have done the… the…” He buried his head harder against Tony’s shoulder, technically it was a prosthetic, but he could feel it, thanks to Shuri’s tech, he could feel the tears soaking through the shirt.

“No, kid, no you shouldn’t have. It was my job, I lost you once Pete, never again.” He felt rather than heard Peter speaking against his chest, he pulled him away just enough so that he would be able to hear him. “Whatcha say, kid?”

“We lost you, though.” His voice was strained and frustrated from having to repeat it, and from disagreeing with Tony.

Tony pulled him close to his chest, then held out his arm towards Harley until the older boy was hugging him tight again too. “You didn’t lose me. Dr Strangelove said there was only one way but that was bullshit, there were loads of ways, seriously I had months board in a hospital room coming up with some, there one which that Ant Guy could have…,” Tony remembered his promise to himself to become a father figure to the two of them, “which ah… we won’t be talking about...”

He eventually managed to slowly edge towards the couch with both of them still holding onto him, this was the most he had done for months, he was mentally and physically exhausted, but they were both still there. 

He would have to explain, of course, he would have to see their anger, and betrayal, and hurt on their faces, he would have to hope that they forgive him, that they’d stick around… but for now he’d just enjoy this: his adopted sons clinging onto him, and not letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> should be updating my Spiderling fic later on cause thats nearly written!
> 
> Any more prompts for this verse lemme know through reviews or message me on tumblr @ loboselinaistrash.tumblr.com or just come give me a shout to say hi


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